Sensitivity to fine-grained and coarse visual information: the effect of blurring on anticipation skill

We examined skilled tennis players’ ability to perceive fine and coarse information by assessing their ability to predict serve direction under three levels of visual blur. A temporal occlusion design was used in which skilled players viewed serves struck by two players that were occluded at one of four points relative to ball-racquet impact (-320ms, -160ms, 0ms, +160ms) and shown with one of three levels of blur (no blur, 20% blur, 40% blur). Using a within-task criterion to establish good and poor anticipators, the results revealed a significant interaction between anticipation skill and level of blur. Anticipation skill was significantly disrupted in the ‘20% blur’ condition; however, judgment accuracy of both groups then improved in the ‘40% blur’ condition while confidence in judgments declined. We conclude that there is evidence for processing of coarse configural information but that anticipation skill in this task was primarily driven by perception of fine-grained information.